Timing Jitter in Repetitively Pulsed Semiconductor Lasers

Abstract

Timing jitter can limit the accuracy of data obtained by optical sampling using repetitively pulsed semiconductor lasers. When the optical sampling is used for real-time analog-to-digital conversion, for example, the maximum allowable jitter is typically 20-40 times less than the maximum permissible pulse width1. Timing jitter in semiconductor lasers has been studied experimentally2,3, but a predictive model has not heretofore been available.